I wrote a poem for you
The day before I met you

When I didn’t yet know a soul can be shipwrecked
Or that the sun can have secrets
When I hadn’t yet learned to look for symptoms
Or dreamed you could become my weakness

You entered me like a sickness
From your first ‘hello’
You whispered my world red
And smiled it yellow

You came to me; a sonnet
A decorated soldier
Dressed in sentences and statements
With which to catch a schoolgirl
In succulent surprise

Your eyes kissed me
Long before your lips did
And under the spectrum of your splendor
My heart bloomed a blushing orchid

I was a slave to my sweet-tooth
You, a dulcit daydream
That knew just how to turn me
From still life into story
And in so doing, you cast me -
A shapeless statue -
Into your private purgatory

You created a planet
With just us living on it
And a snakepit, a sinkhole
With which to swallow me whole

I wrote this poem for you
The day after I met you
I thought it worth to mention
Why I started to regret you

So please pay close attention
(As I’m trying to forget you):

My innocence
Though far from inner sense
Was no less common
Than the unoriginality
Of your sugarcoated sin

A snakepit, a lion’s den,
a second-hand shark cage.
The Big Apple, the Little Rascals,
everything after the Victorian Age.
These things scare me on sight,
but not as much as
Veronica Cartwright.

The Trix Rabbit with a gun,
The Dodgers winning a World Series.
Parallel parking with Mark Hamill,
Sesame Street conspiracy theories.
These things make me shake at night,
but not as much as
Veronica Cartwright.

The White Album, the Black Plague,
toenail clippers, salad bars and Disneyland.
The Richter scale, the Mendoza line,
Any and every last teenage boy band.
These things give me such a fright,
but not as much as
Veronica Cartwright.

Television reruns of H.R. Pufnstuf,
An opened jar of Miracle Whip.
The names of Frank Zappa’s kids,
vacationing on a Carnival cruise ship.
These things horrify me alright,
but still not as much as
Veronica Cartwright.